


368. evenfall

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [257]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 21:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10290632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah goes under a fairy hill to get her daughter back.





	

“You have to eat, Sarah,” says the fae woman sitting across the table from Sarah in the middle of the ballroom. The world is gold and glitter and all around their table people are waltzing, a lithe whirl of animal masks and laughter. The table is small, swaddled in gold tulle. It is right in the middle of the dance floor. It didn’t exist when Sarah got here; she came with her iron-knife and demanded her daughter back and the fae just laughed and told her to sit and wait.

“No thanks,” Sarah says. The fae woman (she told Sarah her name but when she opened her mouth she just said the noise of the wind rushing through fields of tall gold wheat, a sword unsheathed, birds’ wings rustling) (there was an _H_ , definitely, probably, so Sarah has been calling her Helena) sighs moodily and unhinges her jaw to fit an entire pastry inside. It’s beautiful. All the pastries are beautiful: dripping with icing, dusted with sugar. Sarah’s stomach is growling to itself in a contrary sort of way as she waits.

“Your daughter is down deep,” says probably-Helena. “You must be very hungry. Also thirsty. Eat and drink, Sarah. Dance. Be merry with us.”

The rules of fae are various and contrary, but Sarah thinks eating is the very worst thing. Worse than refusing an invitation. Worse than not rising to dance when asked. Eating leaves her down here forever, and then where will Kira be?

“I’ll be merry when I know you lot haven’t eaten her,” she says. She is trying to sound brave, and mostly failing. On the last words the entire ballroom stops dancing, for a moment – then the scratched record resumes, all the smiles back just where they were.

“Rude,” breathes Helena. “ _Very_ rude. We love babies. We do not hurt babies.”

“She’s _nine_ ,” Sarah says.

“Years?”

“Yes,” Sarah says.

“Oh,” Helena sighs, the sound hungry. She shoves a bundle of grapes into her mouth, stems and all, and then swallows it without chewing. Her plate was stuffed full but it’s almost empty now.

“Very long time,” she says, “since I counted in years.” She looks at Sarah, eyes bottomless. Then she blinks and she’s just a weird-looking woman with frizzy blonde branch-tangled hair. “How many do you have.”

Sarah doesn’t say anything. Helena frowns at her, the wrinkle of it scrunching her nose up. “I won’t trick you,” she says, every syllable heavy with offense.

“Great,” Sarah says. She leans back in the chair and folds her arms. The ballroom is full of gilt-gold doors but none of them are opening. They _promised_ her, they said, if she stayed they’d let Kira go. It’s a good deal, isn’t it? It had seemed like a good deal when she’d made it.

Helena makes a sort of _pbbpt_ sound and slouches down in her chair. Her moss-green and dirt-brown layers scrunch around her as she goes, so she looks like some sort of mean feral lady by the end of it. “If we _do_ trick you,” she says, “only nice tricks. Happy lies. Everybody says they don’t want it, but they get mad once the lies go away. People are strange.” She pops a perfect red cherry in her mouth, pulls the stem out between her smiling teeth.

“ _Eat_ , Sarah,” she says.

“No,” Sarah says. “What do you mean, happy lies?”

Helena tilts her head to the side, leans forward, suddenly curious. “I can show you,” she whispers. Around them the dancers turn to stare at the two of them every time they go ‘round, quick flickers of bright gazes.

“What’ll it cost,” Sarah says.

Helena studies her. “You stay,” she says. “Once Kira goes.”

“I’m already doing that.”

“Was question,” Helena says. “Opening. Con-ver-sation-al starter.” She squirms. “ _Anyways_. When you stay. You have to be my friend.”

Sarah goggles. “You’re kidding.”

Helena’s face is flat. A dancer bumps into their table, the whirl of skirt sending Helena’s plate teetering to the edge of their table before Helena grabs it and sticks her tongue out.

“They all want to be your friend also,” she whispers. “Only babies down here. Easier to steal. Grown-ups never want to come.” She smirks. “Everybody wants to eat you _up_.”

All of the dancers are staring at Sarah. One dancer strokes another’s arm, fingertips lingering; Sarah looks away.

“Do you,” she says.

“No,” Helena says. “I just want a friend.”

“And if I’m your friend,” Sarah says slowly, “you won’t lie to me. You won’t let any of ‘em lie to me.”

“Or hurt you,” Helena says. She tilts her head to the side. “That is good also, yes? Do you want them to hurt you? I can let them, if you want.”

“No,” Sarah says. “Where’s my _daughter_.”

“Coming,” Helena says airily, face betraying a complete lack of caring. The dancers are back to not staring and it hits Sarah hard and fast.

“She’s not coming,” she says, “until I make a deal with you. Is she.”

The music stops. The dancers keep waltzing but now they are dancing to nothing, shoes clicking on the golden tiles, laughing without sound. Helena is the most real thing in the room, at their puffed-up golden table in the middle of the dance.

“Not with me,” Helena says. “With somebody. If you had danced, Sarah, you could have had more choices than this.”

She leans forward. “See,” she says in an exaggerated whisper, “truth. Do you like it? I can keep lying to you. Much nicer.”

“I want the truth,” Sarah says shakily. “And I want to know my daughter won’t be…”

Helena twists her fingers together and there’s a gold coin there; she drops it on the table. “Fairy gold,” she says, and beams. “ _Very_ nice. Shiniest gold in any place. Promise. We look after our babies, Sarah.”

“She’s not _yours_.”

Helena shrugs. The music is low but coming back in, the whole Venus Flytrap ballroom confident now. “One of you is. You or her.”

Sarah sucks in a breath. “Me.” She exhales it. “You.” She inhales again. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Helena grins at her, huge and excited. “Sealed,” she says in a singsong. Suddenly she’s moved across the table, so close to Sarah that Sarah can smell her: pine and herbs and the smell of a clean animal. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes,” Sarah says.

“Close your eyes.” Sarah does. There’s a wet mouth pressing a kiss to each eyelid and then the sound – warps, fades, like it’s going underwater. “Open,” Helena says.

The ballroom is gone.

No – the ballroom is earth now, roots. All around Sarah animals are writhing on the ground, gnawing at each other – huge wolves with scarred muzzles, women with wings twisting out of their backs and rows of sharp teeth. Creatures made entirely of mouths. Sarah looks at the table because she doesn’t want to look across it. The table is a tree stump. The table is covered in meat, great rotting slabs of meat.

_Truth_ , Helena had said. The music keeps going, only now it’s low screeches coming from sources Sarah does not know. She can hear the wet panting of the fae-animals on the ground. She wishes she hadn’t looked; she wishes this wasn’t the rest of her life, now. God help her: she wants the gold back. She wants the lie back. Helena had told her she would, and Sarah should have believed her.

Speaking of. She can hear Helena breathing too, the sound of it low and eager. Sarah keeps staring at the meat, like if she looks hard enough it’ll re-ice itself.

“Look,” Helena says softly. “Look, Sarah.”

Sarah shuts her eyes tightly. Then she looks Helena in the face.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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